


fragments

by theadventuresof



Category: Naruto
Genre: Drabbles, Gen, M/M, oneshots
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-12
Updated: 2018-03-12
Packaged: 2019-03-30 04:02:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 4,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13942170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theadventuresof/pseuds/theadventuresof
Summary: a series of hashimada (or at least implied hashimada) oneshots from tumblr prompts. might eventually include some serial-type stuff.





	1. nightmare

Madara is having another nightmare. Hashirama watches him twitching on the bed, jaw clenched, one eye a glowing sliver of scarlet.

“Don’t touch me when I’m—you know,” Madara had said, months ago. “I don’t want to break your nose again.”

But Hashirama, cross-legged on the bed, had held his bloody nose between his fingers and gently informed Madara that he didn’t mind one bit if he got his nose broken again, and healed it in an instant to demonstrate.

“I know you can heal it,” Madara had said. “But…”

But.

It had taken months for Madara to even consider the notion of sharing a bed with Hashirama. And, Hashirama will admit, he’s a difficult bed partner. He refuses to fall asleep even if he’s exhausted, and is somehow even more difficult to rouse the next morning. He tosses and turns; he routinely steals all the blankets and shoves Hashirama into the corner and pins him down with his arms wrapped tightly around Hashirama’s waist. Most mornings their hair ends up tied together in an absurd tangled mess.

Madara has made it clear that he does not want to be disturbed during his dreams. But it goes against every instinct Hashirama has not to come to him, not to breathe words of comfort against his jaw and brush his wild hair out of his eyes and put his arms around his body. He needs to be _close._ But—he doesn’t want to make it worse. So Hashirama waits, watching as closely as he dares.

No one sees this part of Madara. He can’t control how his body reacts to these nightmares. Hashirama watches as he shudders in his sleep and turns his head to one side. He’s sweating, or he’s crying, making small helpless noises against the pillow.

Hashirama wonders if Madara even _has_ good dreams anymore.

Even as the thought crosses his mind, Madara sighs and his face loosens, just a bit, before his eyes slide slowly open. He blinks once, and the sharingan disappears.

“What time is it?” His voice is hoarse. They could be stuck in a meeting together, waiting for the daimyou to finish talking so they can leave and get some dinner.

“Nearly four,” Hashirama says, readjusting the covers over them both.

Madara groans and closes his eyes again. He breathes in. Several seconds pass. He breathes out.

“Sunrise soon,” he says at last, and curls up against Hashirama’s chest with his face over Hashirama’s heart.


	2. late july

“Sometimes I wish I  _ could  _ run away,” Madara admits one day by the riverbank. He stares down into his lap, plays listlessly with his sash. “Not that I ever will.”

Hashirama studies his friend’s face. He is as carefully composed as ever. His bangs have gotten longer and wilder since they first met.

“Why not?” Hashirama says.

Madara smiles up at him. It’s a nice smile, a little sad.

“I can’t,” he says, in a very small voice. Hashirama thinks of Tobirama and he understands.


	3. having second thoughts

“What if they reject the idea?” Hashirama whispers against Madara’s sternum. His face is shining with worry. “What if they throw us out? What if we accidentally start a war?”

Madara presses his hand to Hashirama’s lips. “Someone next door will hear,” he says. “Hashirama, you’re not going to start a war.”

_ Now hurry up and get on with it _ is implied, and Hashirama tries his best. His attention is scattered. He wants to skip to tomorrow afternoon, when this diplomatic mission will all be over. No—no he doesn’t. Then he would miss this, tonight. But—his mind is wandering again and he’s already half missing it and Madara deserves better than this.

“I don’t know if I’ll be able to convince them,” Hashirama says abruptly. Madara’s hands are in his hair and his eyes are wide and scarlet.

“You convinced me,” Madara murmurs once he’s caught his breath, blinking up at him in the near-darkness. The moon is a pale crescent outside and it turns Madara’s hair silver, paints a brilliant white stripe across his face. Hashirama is stunned, astounded, speechless.

“Now lie on your back,” Madara says, and Hashirama is very, very willing to oblige.


	4. witness

Ishikawa can recognize and appreciate beauty. He has seen so many beautiful people. It distracts him, sometimes. He loves the human form. He loves corded muscle and bright clever eyes and raw power. And he also loves his wife and daughters very much.

He has heard the stories about the Leaf’s Hokage. It’s impossible _not_ to hear them by now, even here in the Land of Earth, which is partly why Ishikawa and the daimyō have arranged this meeting with the Leaf today. Even the Land of Water has Kirigakure now. Better to adapt to the new way of things than to remain the only major country without a hidden village, Ishikawa has decided, and very luckily, there is no equivalent of Konoha’s Uchiha clan to get in the way of a multi-clan alliance here.

Not that the Hokage had any trouble wrangling the Uchiha clan into submission. Ishikawa has heard all about him—how his jutsu can create life from nothing, how the ground turns fertile and green wherever he walks, how he can heal even mortal wounds without using handsigns, how his chakra is so strong that a tenth of his power could destroy the earth, how he defeated the leader of the Uchiha and bent the entire unruly clan to his will. People say he is a god on the battlefield, that there is no one alive today who is stronger than Hashirama Senju.

It’s hard to believe, at first, that the man standing before him now is the same one from all the stories. For one thing, he is seven minutes late to the meeting, panting as he half-runs through the door to the meeting room with his flustered bodyguard at his heels. He’s smiling apologetically, tucking a long, curtain-like sheet of shining dark hair behind his ear as he makes his way around the table, shaking hands with the Kamizuru delegates. “I’m very sorry!” he’s saying fervently, bowing to each one with boyish enthusiasm. “We went to the wrong room!” His bodyguard does not bow, but he inclines his head very slightly at all the Kamizuru delegates at once in one swift motion, as if he’s reluctant to expose the back of his neck to a room full of strangers. He is not letting the Hokage out of his sight, and Ishikawa thinks for an odd moment that the bodyguard’s hand lingers for a second too long on the Hokage’s shoulder as they both slide into their chairs. The daimyō looks about as confused as Ishikawa feels. The Hokage is younger than he was expecting—or at least Ishikawa _thinks_ he’s younger. He has a face that’s—well, it’s hard to tell how old he is, exactly, and when he speaks there’s something in his voice that transcends accepted notions of time and age. Maybe he’s ancient, really. The more he looks, the more Ishikawa thinks it’s impossible to tell.

Not that it matters. The Hokage is beautiful, and Ishikawa is dumbstruck.

“Let’s get started,” the Hokage says, gathering his long robes around himself. He shakes back his sleeves, exposing powerful forearms. His bodyguard looks disgruntled at this, for some reason, but then he seems like the world-weary sort of person who looks perpetually disgruntled at everything. “The first thing I’d like to discuss—”

“One moment,” Ishikawa says, holding up his hand. “Lord Hokage, shouldn’t we wait for the rest of your delegates? I had thought the other founding clans were sending representatives.”

The Hokage looks monumentally confused for a split second, before he throws back his head and laughs. It’s a wonderful, resonant, booming laugh, and Ishikawa would really like to hurry up and get a grip. “Oh!” the Hokage says. He gestures towards his bodyguard in a way not unlike that of a proud artist showing off a masterwork. “This is Uchiha Madara, leader of our other founding clan. I’m very sorry for the confusion. It’ll be just us.”

Oh. _Oh._

So—so _this_ is him. The Uchiha leader glares, as if he’ll gut anyone who dares to dispute this. Ishikawa supposes, in hindsight, that he looks fairly regal in his own right. He has a haughty, clever air about him, and his hair—so much hair—hangs past his elbows and spills down his back in a snarled black tangle. He also can’t seem to stop glaring at the Hokage—his face is accordingly full of frown lines—and Ishikawa wonders how on earth the Hokage expects such a precarious, volatile alliance to last. Does he seriously trust the Uchiha leader enough to bring him along all the way to the Land of Earth for a diplomatic conference? Or—or maybe he doesn’t trust him at all, doesn’t want to leave him alone with the village, in case he makes an ill-fated bid for power. Ishikawa shivers. There is a deadly energy radiating from the Uchiha leader, and he knows, intuitively, that this man has done terrible, terrible things, even for a shinobi.

It’s strange. It’s all just very strange.

The Hokage lays out his basic terms of alliance, and Ishikawa watches the Uchiha leader watching the Hokage. Any second now he’s going to notice Ishikawa looking, he’s sure of it—he can picture it now, the sharp black eyes flashing in his direction, and then a whirl of scarlet and a burst of terror so strong it feels like drowning—but it’s not happening; the Uchiha leader is not looking towards Ishikawa at all, and his eyes are still resolutely focused on the Hokage. He watches him intently, curiously. His black eyes trace the line of his lips, the broad slope of his nose, the peak of his hairline, his shining dark hair. The Hokage is… _unfairly_ good-looking, and Ishikawa supposes that even the famed Uchiha Madara himself must someday come to terms with this objective fact. And something about the Hokage’s presence draws your eyes to him. If he didn’t know better, he’d think—no. He’s being absurd.

Ishikawa mentally shakes himself. He’s missed the Hokage’s entire speech, and he quickly turns his attention towards the meeting. The Kamizuru delegates seem reasonably satisfied so far, even more so when the Hokage reveals that he keeps bees, and the daimyō is still nodding and making small sounds of approval at the mildly radical suggestion that construction on the new village headquarters should begin before this winter.

“I hope we can expect a reasonable financial compensation,” says one of the Kamizuru delegates. “This is a bit of a gamble, after all.”

“A _gamble!”_ Ishikawa says, mildly shocked at his own inexplicable eagerness to defend the Hokage’s position. “It would be more of a gamble _not_ to begin construction, don’t you think? We must match the military might of the other great nations as soon as possible! Show them that the Land of Earth is not to be trifled with!”

“I should think,” says the Uchiha leader suddenly, in a voice that sounds like smoke and sparks, “that you’d want to be more concerned with domestic strength for its own sake. Let’s not escalate this into a five-way deadlock.”

It is as if the temperature in the room has dropped ten degrees. The Uchiha leader glances around the room with a smirk playing around his lips, as if he’s acutely aware of the awkward situation he’s created and is _reveling_ in it.

“Well, I trusted your judgment up till now, Lord Hokage, but it seems increasingly odd to me that you’d bring along this diplomatic liability to a peacetime meeting,” says the daimyō. Delegates murmur their assent.

The Hokage sighs a huge sigh and flops down down onto the table like a petulant toddler in the middle of a temper tantrum. “Always conflict,” he moans into the table. He surfaces. “I trust this man with my life,” he says, and his eyes flash in a way that reminds Ishikawa (with a not-so-unpleasant shiver) that this is, in fact, the most powerful man on earth.

The daimyō’s two bodyguards flex their fingers on the handles of their swords. There is a clattering noise. The Uchiha leader has stood up from the table with enough force to knock over his chair. “If anyone in this room,” he says, his voice low and dangerous, “lays a hand on Hashirama Senju…”

The Hokage laughs nervously. “Sit down, Madara,” he says, and the Uchiha leader casts a very ugly glance at the bodyguards before retrieving his chair and sinking slowly back into it. Ishikawa thinks he sees something subtle and powerful pass between the two shinobi, a sort of half-glance of mutual understanding, and is utterly amazed at the Hokage’s ability to just—get the man to sit down like that. _Something_ is definitely going on.

“Listen,” says the daimyō, and at once he launches into a tirade on the futility of war and the coming of a new age. Or something like that, Ishikawa thinks, because about two seconds in his brain absolutely refuses to focus and utterly rejects the noises emanating from the daimyō’s mouth.

The Hokage has carefully arranged his face into a polite yet puzzled expression, and Ishikawa watches him actually stifle a yawn as the daimyō relentlessly continues to speak. He’s staring at the expanse of wall slightly to the left of the daimyō’s head, his eyes glazing over. The Uchiha leader is watching him intently, curiously. He clears his throat and his voice crackles like a bad radio transmission. The sound snaps the Hokage out of his polite stupor. At once he notices the Uchiha leader looking at him, or maybe he knew about it all along. They catch each other’s eye, and then share another very loaded look. Ishikawa quickly looks away, feeling as if he is intruding on—something that he doesn’t quite understand. Surely they’re not—no. They wouldn’t be so—so _blatant_ about it. Not in the middle of a meeting as important as this one.

A sort of powerful warmth sweeps over the conference table. The Hokage’s chakra is flaring, Ishikawa realizes, and it feels like a sunny glade full of soft ferns, like a warm summer night after a thunderstorm, like curled frost-covered leaves and jewel-red berries glistening in the snow.

The Uchiha leader smiles lazily. He looks like a sated cat, powerful and proud and motionless, perched at his seat with his gloved hands folded on the table. The Hokage returns the smile, and—Ishikawa shakes his head. Is this—is this like _foreplay_ for them?

“...Is this all agreeable to you? Lord Hokage? Ishikawa?”

Ishikawa starts. _Oh._ _That was my name._ He looks towards the Hokage, rather helplessly.

The Hokage sighs a massive exasperated sigh and slowly slides down against the surface of the table, dark hair spilling in every direction. “That sounds fine,” he says, his voice muffled, and the gesture is so dramatic and exaggerated and absurd that Ishikawa nearly laughs. And then he catches a glimpse of the Uchiha leader’s face and he’s completely taken aback.

It’s precisely like watching the sun come out. Every harsh line on the Uchiha’s thin face softens and his black eyes sparkle and his shoulders slope downwards as he melts back against the chair. He looks years younger.

And then he notices Ishikawa watching him, and every ounce of softness drains from his body and he stiffens in his chair, jaw clenched. But the softness was there. It was definitely— _something_ is going on between them.

Ishikawa imagines that the politics of Konoha must be… _very_ interesting to witness in person.

* * *

“Well? Have you warmed up to the Land of Earth yet?”

“Hardly,” Madara scoffs. “Grit everywhere. The constant exfoliation has got to stop. I’ll be pulling pebbles out of my shoes for weeks.”

They’re entwined together on the futon, Madara sitting squarely in Hashirama’s lap, Hashirama combing through Madara’s hair with one hand and refilling both their glasses with the other.

“Is that so? I rather like pebbles.” Hashirama hands Madara his glass. “Especially the smaller ones.”

Madara looks up at him, very seriously. “I know,” he says. “You’ll have so many in your pockets by the time we go to leave that you won’t be able to get off the ground.”

“There are some very good skipping stones here,” Hashirama says, taking a drink. “I thought, once we get back, we could go up to the river and try them out.”

Madara smiles faintly. “I hope you’re not too out of practice,” he says. “All the paperwork. All these meetings. No time for frivolity.”

Hashirama puffs out his chest. “Frivolity!” he says with mock affrontement. “I take stone skipping _very_ seriously. Besides, _you’re_ the one who’s out of practice.”

A wheezing laugh bubbles up in Madara’s throat. “We’ll see about that,” he says, raising his glass to his lips. Their foreheads knock together slightly as Hashirama reaches for his own glass, and they stay like that for a moment in the soft candlelight, listening to each other breathe.

“Wait! What am I doing?” Hashirama says. “I can’t be drinking tonight! I have all those forms to fill out!”

Madara laughs. “You haven’t done those yet?”

Hashirama apparently decides that not answering will speak for itself. “I had always thought,” he says instead, “that you had the most exquisite laugh.”

Madara blushes a deep pink. He glares down at his lap. “And?” he says, scowling.

“And I was exactly right.”

Madara gets back to work on his drink, blushing even harder. Hashirama watches him. He realizes his mouth is hanging open slightly. He closes it.

“It’s very _dreary_ here,” Madara says presently. “It’s too gray. I miss the Land of Fire. I miss blue skies, and warm weather. I miss the _village,_ Hashirama,” he says, making a face as he finishes his drink. “Hope it’s all right without us. Do you think that Kamizuru fellow noticed anything during the meeting? He seemed rather...nosy.”

“Who knows?” Hashirama says, pouring more sake. “And don't worry about the village; Tobirama will take good care of it in the meantime.”

Madara laughs again, softly this time. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

They drink in silence for a while, draining their glasses again. Madara’s face is relentlessly pink now. He stretches, arching his back like a cat. His spine pops. Hashirama reaches up with one hand and cups his face and silently kisses his lips. Madara makes a not-quite-surprised noise and his hands find Hashirama’s shoulders, and he hooks his knees around the small of Hashirama's back.

“One more night here and then we can leave,” Hashirama says, kissing Madara’s nose and handing him a fresh glass. “Unless you grow fond of this place by then?”

Madara snorts.

“I mean it! A lot can happen in a day,” Hashirama says, pouting over the rim of his glass.

“I’m more concerned with what’s happening right here,” Madara says quietly. “Right now.”

Hashirama smiles. “Very good point,” he says, and turns his attention towards the situation at hand. Not much paperwork gets done that night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is actually the first hashimada fic i ever wrote, but edited heavily bc back then i had no idea about the actual timeline of events. therefore this is probably still somewhat inaccurate but whatever, folks, i do what i want


	5. bisect

“Hey,” Hashirama gurgles. “Do me a favor?”

It’s almost funny, seeing Madara panicking like this. Hashirama can’t feel his legs. Or anything below his chest, for that matter, just a large wet red smear around the area of his waist. His hands are astoundingly cold and there’s a strand of hair in his mouth. All of these sensations he observes with a sort of trancelike serenity, and on top of it all he has the vague feeling that Madara is trying to talk to him. Hashirama tries to console him, get him to focus, but finds it impossible to lift his hands. Ah. This isn’t good. He’s going into shock. Madara is still talking, Hashirama thinks dully, but he isn’t making any sense. He concentrates.

“Don’t move,” Madara gets out at last, and Hashirama has to laugh—as if he’s going anywhere like this—and a spray of blood flies from his mouth. Madara winces, wipes his cheek clean. “I’ll—I’ll—I’ll get your other half,” he says, and Hashirama lets his eyes slide shut.

Some time later a cold hand slaps his face and Hashirama jolts awake. Madara’s face is inches from his own, eyes wide and black and terrified. _“Don’t_ close your eyes,” he growls, and then gives a high-pitched wheeze. Is he _laughing?_ “Hashirama, tell me you can heal this, tell me you can heal yourself, _please,”_ he says, and Hashirama summons the last of his strength.

“I can—” he can feel the blood pooling in his lungs— “try.”

Madara guides Hashirama’s hand to his waist and holds his fingers there. Hashirama chokes on blood and funnels healing chakra into his hand, down his spine. He frowns.

“Madara, there’s a vertebra missing.”

“Fucking grow it back, then!” Madara says at an impressively hysterical pitch, sounding like he’s trying to whisper and shout at the same time. His hand is still clenched around Hashirama’s. He casts a hopeless glance around at the carnage. “It could be anywhere around here.”

Hashirama grits his teeth. He increases the flow of chakra until it feels like his entire spinal column is on fire. He’s vaguely aware of Madara squeezing his hand, holding his face, wiping the blood from the corner of his mouth, whispering into his hair. And then—he has no idea how much time has passed—he becomes aware of his toes tingling. The sensation is awful, like pins and needles but a thousand times worse, but his torso has once again connected with his pelvis, and Madara slumps over backwards and sits solidly on his heels, shuddering.

Hashirama cautiously attempts bending his knees. His legs respond, thankfully, and after a moment of contemplation he manages to sits up. Madara holds his shoulders.

Hashirama tilts his head, pondering his legs. “At least they’re on the right way,” he says presently, grinning darkly up at him. “You were so distracted back there, I was afraid you’d put them on backwards.”

“Shut up,” Madara says, and then he gives an odd stuttering gasp and and he’s crying into Hashirama’s chest, arms wrapped around his back. Hashirama lifts one arm with the rest of his strength and slowly strokes Madara’s hair.

“You’re bleeding too,” he says, as his hand comes away wet.

“What?” Madara says. “It’s nothing. Save your chakra, for once.”

“Here,” says Hashirama. He presses his hand to the wound, tries to transmit feelings of calm and tranquility into Madara as he heals him. Madara’s heart is still racing, and his breathing is much too shallow. “I’m all right," he says, "it’s all right, we’re both going to be all right.”

Madara sighs, rests his chin on Hashirama’s shoulder. “Yes,” he says at last, and holds Hashirama a bit tighter. He bites his lip. “I’m…very glad you’re not…dead.”

They come apart. Madara still looks dazed. Hashirama imagines he doesn’t look much better.

“I think my legs still look a little crooked,” Hashirama says, very gravely. Madara snorts. “Fetch me my sword and let’s try it again.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we never really see hashirama get hurt in canon (physically, anyway) but i bet there are some things that take a bit more effort than others to heal...


	6. reverie (1)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you know what i didn’t get to write in unfinished portraits????? pining hashirama. or, rather, pining hashirama with even the slightest iota of self-awareness

“I won’t do it, I don’t want to die, I won’t go,” someone shouts in their sleep. Hashirama picks his way across the room, sandals in his hand, tiptoeing to avoid the tangle of tatami mats and hammocks. He steps silently out onto the porch. The moon is setting through the clouds; haze gathers on the horizon. He shivers. The wood beneath his bare feet is wet and cold. He closes the door, puts his feet in the grass. Better. He can breathe again, and his skin is no longer prickling so severely.

They are battling the Uchiha again today. Not for a while yet, but they’ve been holed up at the old compound between the hills for several long weeks now, fighting in the rain. Hashirama puts on his sandals and walks.

The Uchiha have almost certainly lined the forest path with an assortment of creative trip wires and exploding shuriken. Madara’s brother’s doing, no doubt—Hashirama sampled some of his work last week—but he finds none. He scales a pine tree, steadies himself at the top with one hand on the rough bark. The forest is unbearably quiet. Somehow Hashirama can’t picture the Uchiha clan sleeping. He imagines them hunched like ravens in their dark mantles, staring unblinkingly at the moon, a cluster of glowing eyes.

Back on the ground he is rational again, and the battlefield itself is laid out before him, innocent and silent and still. Hashirama skirts around a puddle and progresses onwards with difficulty. His feet slide in the mud. Every so often there is a patch of frenzied twisting footprints and charred grass. He nearly loses a sandal in a deep pool of slime. Quietly, he wills moss to life under his feet to give him some more traction.

His throat is burning as he walks. None of this is right. He should go back. This is all wrong. Hashirama stumbles over a tussock. Something clawlike brushes his ankle and he shudders because he just _knows_ it’s dead fingers which means the rest of the body is underneath here too, slowly melting in its armor, facedown in foul inch-deep water—this _is_ a battlefield; he’s lost track of how many people have died here—he looks down and it’s just a forked branch, snagged innocently on his pant leg. As he reaches down to remove it he hears the distant clatter of armor and he drops into a crouch, holding his breath. _No._ Someone else is here. Hashirama can see him now. He’s draped in a long dark cloak, pulling armor from a corpse near the forest at the other edge of the marsh. Hashirama waits, his hand steady over his belt, ready to draw his blade. The intruder hasn’t noticed him yet. He’s definitely an Uchiha. He can tell by the hair and the—

_Oh._

Madara straightens up with a dented slate-colored breastplate in his gloved hands and Hashirama watches him, prays he won’t notice that he’s there.

Madara notices, of course. Their eyes meet.

* * *

“What are you doing here?” Madara says.

He can tell Madara hasn’t slept. They are inches apart in Madara’s genjutsu, suspended in blank space, and Madara is disheveled and exhausted, with yesterday’s war paints still smudged under his eyes. Even his sharingan looks duller. Hashirama can’t answer. Shame boils his throat. The Uchiha clan has barely any armor. Madara came here out of necessity; Hashirama did not. No one even knows he’s out h—

 _Oh._ Oh—oh damn.

He shakes himself. He still hasn’t answered. “Surveying the terrain,” he says. It’s a flimsy explanation and he knows it. Madara seems to be thinking somewhere along the same lines. He raises a questioning eyebrow.

“And,” he says, “have there been any significant changes since…” he squints. “Five hours ago?”

Hashirama is silent. This is the first real conversation they’ve had all month—no, since the beginning of spring, Hashirama thinks—and of course it had to be like this, sharing a space in Madara’s genjutsu just before another battle. But—Madara isn’t fighting him, isn’t reaching for a blade or forming handsigns for a fireball.

“Well,” Hashirama says slowly, “the sun is coming up.”

Madara sighs. “Not right now. No time is passing.”

“Oh,” says Hashirama. A look passes between them. Madara suddenly seems wary. Hashirama could release this level of genjutsu whenever he wanted. And—the whole field is Senju territory anyway; Hashirama could have him brought back to the compound, could leave the Uchiha clan lost and leaderless and flailing.

“Do you hate me?” Madara says at last.

Hashirama blanches. Has Madara read his mind? He feels like he’s treading water in his own head, and tries to project an air of cautious optimism at his frien—at Madara. He wants to stay here for just a little longer, in Madara’s genjutsu, detached from the world. He can’t face the clan. Not yet. Not yet. It’s neither cold nor warm in the genjutsu, neither dark nor light. Or—or maybe it is, and Hashirama’s senses are just shut off to these sensations. He finds himself comforted by it, and then forces back another wave of prickling shame. Tobirama and Madara, they are the real leaders, not like—

Madara turns away. “I see.”

Hashirama panics. “Madara, _Madara,”_ he says. He catches Madara’s imaginary wrist between his hands. The genjutsu world quivers. “Of course I don’t hate you.”

Madara gives him a mournful look. “This would all be a lot easier,” he says, “if you did.”

* * *

_I admire you more than you could ever know. I always have. Do you know that, Madara? Can you see how precious you are to me?_

Hashirama feels like he is suffocating. Madara....he is beautiful. He is beautiful and wild and powerful and deadly and clever and Hashirama wants him, and hates that he does, because nothing will ever come of it. As the Senju clan marches along the forest path towards the battlefield, the day burns hot and hazy, and the air is thick with the cloying smell of rot. Then the instant before they charge it’s like time has stopped once again, and he can see the entire universe in Madara’s eyes. His clan hovers behind him, sweating in their dark mantles, looking like an overlarge swarm of bats. Then they sprint at each other, Madara screaming, a deadly whirl of violet robes and glowing eyes and immaculate teeth.


End file.
